During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
IMO increasing solar and wind generation is good for us, but unlike Ed Miliband I think we should keep backup gas capacity for periods of low wind and solar.
Does Ed say we should be decommissioning gas power stations? I've not seen him say that. His optimism about net zero by 2030 is of course completely misplaced, but massively expanding renewable energy generation doesn't preclude maintaining plenty of CCGT capacity that can be turned on when needed - in the same way none of it suggests we should be shutting down Dinorwig.
Biden stumbled over “ballot” and it’s came out as halfway between “ballot” and “battle”. It didn’t interrupt the flow of his speech and was understandable given context
Radio 4 reported it as a “major gaffe” that will renew “doubt” about his candidacy
The man has a stutter FFS. What other disability would it be ok to mock?
Its an odd stutter that names Putin as president of Ukraine, and Donald Trump as your own vice-President.
Those were mistakes.
This was not.
Biden's stutter is so bad he thinks President Mitterand is still alive, and Europe is in fact Asia
It must be the worst stutter in the history of idiolalia
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
You don't think that extended periods of adverse weather conditions have been part of every analysis of the practicality and economics of grid renewables for the last decade ? Faith has nothing to do with planning.
There's an argument - and it'd help "levelling up" that energy is far too expensive in Scotland and to a lesser extent the north of England and too cheap in the southeast.
But Scotland has the greatest renewables in the UK doesn't it, and over the cycle it generates more from renewables than it consumes (I fully understand that it can only make this statement because supply comes from fossil fuels when the demand outstrips it).
We now have quite a large charging station quite close to us, near the dual carriageway/ring road around Dundee. It has space for maybe 20 vehicles. Although I go past it almost every day I have yet to see anyone using it. Some people are going to lose serious money on these charging points. The demand just isn't there. Possibly because people do not buy EVs unless they can charge from home. That may change, but not yet.
Setting up fast chargers is bloody expensive, so the pricing is accordingly high. But even those who charge at home (or work) will need to resort to them on occasion.
It's the usual first mover problem. Assuming the switch to EVs continues, the demand will eventually be there. And the system components (with the exception of the cabling) will drop rapidly as the tech improves and the production volume increases.
How many people are making long distance journeys through Dundee at the moment? OTOH, the chargers at the remote parts of Scotland tend to be quite busy, and BnBs advertise that they've got one.
Undoubtedly some sites will prove uneconomic. OTOH, the HV supply to site will provide some value to whomever subsequently acquires it.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
And it's a bit like tobacco tax. If the aim is to generate as much money as possible, then discouraging parents from using the private sector is counter-productive. If the aim is to reduce the use of the private sector in education for various socio-economic reasons, then discouraging parents is the point.
Labour made the fiscal argument because that was easier to do than focus on the social angle.
"Why state bureaucracy is crucial to our happiness
With politicians increasingly sabotaging the machinery of government worldwide, our only protection lies in the civil service, judiciary, police and security services
There's an argument - and it'd help "levelling up" that energy is far too expensive in Scotland and to a lesser extent the north of England and too cheap in the southeast.
But Scotland has the greatest renewables in the UK doesn't it, and over the cycle it generates more from renewables than it consumes (I fully understand that it can only make this statement because supply comes from fossil fuels when the demand outstrips it).
Got to say 13 years to connect a new solar farm to the grid is taking the mickey...
How on earth is it projected to take so long. @Malmesbury process state in action I'm guessing.
It's going to be a combination of the location of the solar farm, network capacity within the area and the route / distance required to provide the additional capacity (thicker cables for x0miles) to that farm.
The UK's power network has some interesting limitations, remember my comment as to why Blyth is getting an AI data centre (power availability trumps everything else nowadays) see today's Register for a similar story and the closure of the main road from Scotch Corner to Richmond for 6 weeks last year to allow new cables to be laid int the new retail park..
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
IMO increasing solar and wind generation is good for us, but unlike Ed Miliband I think we should keep backup gas capacity for periods of low wind and solar.
Does Ed say we should be decommissioning gas power stations? I've not seen him say that. His optimism about net zero by 2030 is of course completely misplaced, but massively expanding renewable energy generation doesn't preclude maintaining plenty of CCGT capacity that can be turned on when needed - in the same way none of it suggests we should be shutting down Dinorwig.
What's the projected lifespan for CCGT/gas plants. I assume if no more are built (And Ed doesn't sound keen on any aspect of fossil fuels) then old ones will close eventually. Or can our existing ones stay open through 2040 and beyond ?
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
You don't think that extended periods of adverse weather conditions have been part of every analysis of the practicality and economics of grid renewables for the last decade ? Faith has nothing to do with planning.
We will find out the next time we get a repeat of December 2010s conditions now that our last coal generation stations are gone and what little nuclear is being built is years late.
Your faith in the powers that be to get it right is greater than mine.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
IMO increasing solar and wind generation is good for us, but unlike Ed Miliband I think we should keep backup gas capacity for periods of low wind and solar.
Gas for electricity generation is pretty fast to turn off and on. A model of a wide portfolio of renewables plus gas backup is pretty sensible as a next step. It doesn't get us all the way to zero, but it gets us closer than we would be otherwise. It might also be that we need to accept that some energy-intensive industries need to run with the seasons more than they do at present.
(The more general point here is that the mindset to manage natural resources has to be a bit different to managing inorganic ones. You have to acknowledge the limits of human power and work with the resource a bit. It's the difference between manicured and wildflower gardens, or working with metal vs. wood. I suspect that humbling is what some people really dislike.)
In the meantime, every solar panel is a tear in Putin's eye.
There's an argument - and it'd help "levelling up" that energy is far too expensive in Scotland and to a lesser extent the north of England and too cheap in the southeast.
But Scotland has the greatest renewables in the UK doesn't it, and over the cycle it generates more from renewables than it consumes (I fully understand that it can only make this statement because supply comes from fossil fuels when the demand outstrips it).
A question for Unionists, should this golden age of cheap energy be expedited for Scotland or should it be blocked for reasons of keeping Scotland in a too wee, too poor, too stupid fugue state?
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
You don't think that extended periods of adverse weather conditions have been part of every analysis of the practicality and economics of grid renewables for the last decade ? Faith has nothing to do with planning.
During cloudy winter anticyclones we typically generate about 2gw of wind power. That's with the current wind turbine count and current interconnector setup. Only a small expansion of our wind capacity and a few more interconnectors would probably take the minimum up to at least 5gw, and combine that with turbines further out to sea and greater battery storage and you're getting higher than that even on the worst days. And shedloads of energy at all other times.
We need that surplus electricity during more favourable periods to embark on the next stage of our decarbonisation as the country's domestic heating and transportation get electrified. We are still capacity constrained.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
Errr.. have used Tesla chargers in the middle of French winter, out in the sticks. Real, solid ice on the ground, not just a bit of sleet.
France is a tad further south and you get a reasonable chance of winter highs producing cloudless skies rather than leaden clouds and freezing fog.
In the middle of France it can be fucking freezing - real to your marrow cold. In a way you rarely get in the UK.
You can use the Tesla chargers in during torrential rain and friends in Calgary have used them when the temperature outside was described as "life threatening without the right gear".
But were the skies leaden with freezing fog like the UK often has in end of nov and december winter highs?
Dosent matter how cold it is if the sun is shining (within reason, and there may be some efficiency gains/losses with temperature change)
Yes chargers will work in rain but rather less effectively than in clear skies.
I always thought Tesla chargers were connected to the grid. Are you saying they are all solar powered? How do they work at night?
Discussing solar, obviously if connected to the grid the issue is somewhat irrelevant.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
You don't think that extended periods of adverse weather conditions have been part of every analysis of the practicality and economics of grid renewables for the last decade ? Faith has nothing to do with planning.
We will find out the next time we get a repeat of December 2010s conditions now that our last coal generation stations are gone and what little nuclear is being built is years late.
Your faith in the powers that be to get it right is greater than mine.
Your faith in your own expertise being greater than that of the people who manage this stuff for a living is certainly impressive.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
And it's a bit like tobacco tax. If the aim is to generate as much money as possible, then discouraging parents from using the private sector is counter-productive. If the aim is to reduce the use of the private sector in education for various socio-economic reasons, then discouraging parents is the point.
Labour made the fiscal argument because that was easier to do than focus on the social angle.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
IMO increasing solar and wind generation is good for us, but unlike Ed Miliband I think we should keep backup gas capacity for periods of low wind and solar.
Gas for electricity generation is pretty fast to turn off and on. A model of a wide portfolio of renewables plus gas backup is pretty sensible as a next step. It doesn't get us all the way to zero, but it gets us closer than we would be otherwise. It might also be that we need to accept that some energy-intensive industries need to run with the seasons more than they do at present.
(The more general point here is that the mindset to manage natural resources has to be a bit different to managing inorganic ones. You have to acknowledge the limits of human power and work with the resource a bit. It's the difference between manicured and wildflower gardens, or working with metal vs. wood. I suspect that humbling is what some people really dislike.)
In the meantime, every solar panel is a tear in Putin's eye.
But a glorious glint in President Xi's. The scenario you paint above is realistic, but it is not going to come with cheaper electricity. That infrastructure still needs maintained. It's like we had to build a second three lane motorway alongside the M6 all the way up to Gretna, but we wouldnt be allowed to drive on it until the other motorway was at gridlock. But we would still need to maintain it to the same standard, as the other older motorway. As it would need to be instantly ready to use, it would need to have fully staffed service stations, speed cameras, highways agency, junctions and roundabouts out into major towns, and regularly resurfaced just like the original. There is no scenario in which this ends up cheaper than we have now.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
If the battery is inside your house then any losses that generate heat will usually save energy somewhere else.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
Absolutely, I already use a house battery, along with a time of use tariff means my electricity is cheaper than it was twenty years ago when I left home.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
IMO increasing solar and wind generation is good for us, but unlike Ed Miliband I think we should keep backup gas capacity for periods of low wind and solar.
Does Ed say we should be decommissioning gas power stations? I've not seen him say that. His optimism about net zero by 2030 is of course completely misplaced, but massively expanding renewable energy generation doesn't preclude maintaining plenty of CCGT capacity that can be turned on when needed - in the same way none of it suggests we should be shutting down Dinorwig.
What's the projected lifespan for CCGT/gas plants. I assume if no more are built (And Ed doesn't sound keen on any aspect of fossil fuels) then old ones will close eventually. Or can our existing ones stay open through 2040 and beyond ?
Small scale micro gas peaking plants can be built in a period of months, and that includes the planning process.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
IMO increasing solar and wind generation is good for us, but unlike Ed Miliband I think we should keep backup gas capacity for periods of low wind and solar.
Gas for electricity generation is pretty fast to turn off and on. A model of a wide portfolio of renewables plus gas backup is pretty sensible as a next step. It doesn't get us all the way to zero, but it gets us closer than we would be otherwise. It might also be that we need to accept that some energy-intensive industries need to run with the seasons more than they do at present.
(The more general point here is that the mindset to manage natural resources has to be a bit different to managing inorganic ones. You have to acknowledge the limits of human power and work with the resource a bit. It's the difference between manicured and wildflower gardens, or working with metal vs. wood. I suspect that humbling is what some people really dislike.)
In the meantime, every solar panel is a tear in Putin's eye.
There is a big security argument in favour of using renewables instead of buying from unstable/hostile foreign regimes.
However Milipede minor banning new exploration wholly undermines that given we will need to back up renewables and use gas for heating for many years to come.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
Errr.. have used Tesla chargers in the middle of French winter, out in the sticks. Real, solid ice on the ground, not just a bit of sleet.
Isn't that the perceived wisdom that Tesla just does chargers better and long term a win for Elon. In the US, he has all the best locations, the chargers are better, the adaptor to connect to your car is better. And after the period of exclusivity, he is opening up to other EVs and its $$$$$ for him.
Essentially, Tesla won the charging wars in the US. They did this by having a large amount chargers at good locations, a simple plugin-in-just-works system and a very high uptime.
The other manufacturers had a state back plug system - which has to be one of the worst designs ever, and subsidies. They failed to actually build many chargers and the uptime on those they did is pretty poor.
NOTE: to any politicians reading this.. modulate the subsidies for building charging infrastructure by the uptime and theorise charged to the user. If someone is selling electricity at 80p a kWh and their chargers only work 15% of the time, they need to get *nothing*
Its a reminder about how bad the public sector can be about maintaining estate. The council or government (looking at you Scottish Government) will tender out, get a load of chargers installed, box ticked. Zero maintenance. Charge Place Scotland is/was so unreliable it became pointless using them.
Many of the private providers are shit.
It comes from different viewpoints. Tesla were building a network to complement their cars and make EVs practical for long distance. The profit (and they make a profit on charging) is seen as a secondary effect.
Much of the charging stuff from other companies is highest price, minimum service, in a stupid dash for the highest profit.
There's an argument - and it'd help "levelling up" that energy is far too expensive in Scotland and to a lesser extent the north of England and too cheap in the southeast.
But Scotland has the greatest renewables in the UK doesn't it, and over the cycle it generates more from renewables than it consumes (I fully understand that it can only make this statement because supply comes from fossil fuels when the demand outstrips it).
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
How many requests do they normally get? It's a meaningless number without a baseline (preferably YoY as there are bound to be more requests in the months leading up to school year end.)
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
And yet battery storage is storming along. Already having a major effect in California. Time shift leccy is very profitable.
Also works far better (and cheaper) than gas for peaker plants. Quicker, cheaper spin up and shutdown…..
There's an argument - and it'd help "levelling up" that energy is far too expensive in Scotland and to a lesser extent the north of England and too cheap in the southeast.
But Scotland has the greatest renewables in the UK doesn't it, and over the cycle it generates more from renewables than it consumes (I fully understand that it can only make this statement because supply comes from fossil fuels when the demand outstrips it).
Got to say 13 years to connect a new solar farm to the grid is taking the mickey...
But if someone doesn’t do a 5,000 page study that no one will ever read on the effect of the solar farm on equality… how will human life continue?
Given that it's Northern Powergrid saying that it's 13 years until we provide the required capacity in that area I don't see any stories about studies on equality.
It's more don't pick such a blooming stupid location for a solar farm go somewhere where the grid has spare capacity or in this case is actually vaguely close to the grid...
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Aside from the fixed storage, the percentage of cars that is actually being used, even at peak times, is surprisingly low.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
And yet battery storage is storming along. Already having a major effect in California. Time shift leccy is very profitable.
Also works far better (and cheaper) than gas for peaker plants. Quicker, cheaper spin up and shutdown…..
It is useful for grid management of sharp peaks, but it's less helpful as a replacement for something else.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Hmm...I would love to take you Christmas shopping dear, but unfortunately the car is needed for back up power right now. I like it.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
You don't think that extended periods of adverse weather conditions have been part of every analysis of the practicality and economics of grid renewables for the last decade ? Faith has nothing to do with planning.
During cloudy winter anticyclones we typically generate about 2gw of wind power. That's with the current wind turbine count and current interconnector setup. Only a small expansion of our wind capacity and a few more interconnectors would probably take the minimum up to at least 5gw, and combine that with turbines further out to sea and greater battery storage and you're getting higher than that even on the worst days. And shedloads of energy at all other times.
We need that surplus electricity during more favourable periods to embark on the next stage of our decarbonisation as the country's domestic heating and transportation get electrified. We are still capacity constrained.
If you can get a 150% increase in output from a small expansion of wind capacity they should put you in charge, you're going to save us all a fortune.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
You don't think that extended periods of adverse weather conditions have been part of every analysis of the practicality and economics of grid renewables for the last decade ? Faith has nothing to do with planning.
We will find out the next time we get a repeat of December 2010s conditions now that our last coal generation stations are gone and what little nuclear is being built is years late.
Your faith in the powers that be to get it right is greater than mine.
Your faith in your own expertise being greater than that of the people who manage this stuff for a living is certainly impressive.
I remember when those "experts" who claimed that you could resignal the West Coast Main Line with in cab signalling (what we now call digital signalling) for a couple of billion at the turn of the century, said much the same about me on similar forums.
You don't need to be a qualified anatomist to deduce that someone has a leg missing.
It also helps to understand that when there are big political/corporate targets the politicians will be told they can be met, because people have big mortgages and can't afford to say "no". So most don't.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
The people and infrastructure to supply that final backstop are going to be eye wateringly expensive.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
How many requests do they normally get? It's a meaningless number without a baseline (preferably YoY as there are bound to be more requests in the months leading up to school year end.)
Don't know, but a quick google says that there are about 200 000 pupils in Surrey of whom about 40 000 go to independent schools.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
And yet battery storage is storming along. Already having a major effect in California. Time shift leccy is very profitable.
Also works far better (and cheaper) than gas for peaker plants. Quicker, cheaper spin up and shutdown…..
It is useful for grid management of sharp peaks, but it's less helpful as a replacement for something else.
Battery storage is moving from peak smoothing to serious time shifting.
The reason is that while we have 15 year planing enquiries for big storage systems, there’s little or nothing to stop a handful of shipping containers being put on an industrial site.
The possible vs the ideal…
Edit: right now, battery storage would be cheaper than building Dinorwig again. And prices continue to fall.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Problem is there isn't nearly enough of it. We already had to resort to vast banks of diesel generators to keep the lights on in recent years, and that was when we still had two or three coal fired 2gw power stations to bring on line. Gone now. Plus weve lost some nuclear capacity and new ones are getting later and later.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
You don't think that extended periods of adverse weather conditions have been part of every analysis of the practicality and economics of grid renewables for the last decade ? Faith has nothing to do with planning.
We will find out the next time we get a repeat of December 2010s conditions now that our last coal generation stations are gone and what little nuclear is being built is years late.
Your faith in the powers that be to get it right is greater than mine.
Your faith in your own expertise being greater than that of the people who manage this stuff for a living is certainly impressive.
I remember when those "experts" who claimed that you could resignal the West Coast Main Line with in cab signalling (what we now call digital signalling) for a couple of billion at the turn of the century, said much the same about me on similar forums.
You don't need to be a qualified anatomist to deduce that someone has a leg missing.
It also helps to understand that when there are big political/corporate targets the politicians will be told they can be met, because people have big mortgages and can't afford to say "no". So most don't.
The national grid have put out statements about how they can cope with the extra demands that moving gas heating to electricity and cars to the grid. Whenever I have pointed out the colossal technological and logistically complex it is going to be to achieve this, the statement is pointed to and that is the end of the discussion.
Quite the opposite in fact. The prison service work at getting people ready for release with a bed, ideally some work and normally some supervision in respect of the unserved part of the sentence. Simply dumping people out in the street is probably the best way to get them straight back in again with a new offence to their name and someone else's life ruined or at least upset.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
How many requests do they normally get? It's a meaningless number without a baseline (preferably YoY as there are bound to be more requests in the months leading up to school year end.)
Don't know, but a quick google says that there are about 200 000 pupils in Surrey of whom about 40 000 go to independent schools.
And some parents would have intended to move to state schooling anyway. Friends down south sent their child to a private school for primary and early secondary then moved to the state 6FC based on the relative qualities of local operations.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
How many requests do they normally get? It's a meaningless number without a baseline (preferably YoY as there are bound to be more requests in the months leading up to school year end.)
Don't know, but a quick google says that there are about 200 000 pupils in Surrey of whom about 40 000 go to independent schools.
Blimey, that's an enormous private/state ratio. Is there a colossal home counties effect in operation vis a vis private schools ? I think it'll barely register up here - though I am quite sure my neighbour has two children currently in private school (With a third too old now)
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Problem is there isn't nearly enough of it. We already had to resort to vast banks of diesel generators to keep the lights on in recent years, and that was when we still had two or three coal fired 2gw power stations to bring on line. Gone now. Plus weve lost some nuclear capacity and new ones are getting later and later.
Very little wind today. Nearly 41% from fossil fuels (including a bit of coal so we do have some coal powered stations left) and nearly 20% imported by interconnectors. https://grid.iamkate.com/
Seriously disappointing numbers. With our wind resources we really should be a net exporter of energy over the year.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
IMO increasing solar and wind generation is good for us, but unlike Ed Miliband I think we should keep backup gas capacity for periods of low wind and solar.
Does Ed say we should be decommissioning gas power stations? I've not seen him say that. His optimism about net zero by 2030 is of course completely misplaced, but massively expanding renewable energy generation doesn't preclude maintaining plenty of CCGT capacity that can be turned on when needed - in the same way none of it suggests we should be shutting down Dinorwig.
What's the projected lifespan for CCGT/gas plants. I assume if no more are built (And Ed doesn't sound keen on any aspect of fossil fuels) then old ones will close eventually. Or can our existing ones stay open through 2040 and beyond ?
30 years design life, so I've been told - at least for one plant. But like Trigger's broom, they can be kept going for much longer with renewals of bits and pieces, which is straightforward but expensive. As an example, AIUI Little Barford power station near me (~700MW, commissioned 1994) is currently having a brand-new boiler units (one of two on site) installed. It last went a major upgrade in 2012.
Interesting thread thank you Y doethur. It does seem though that you think most of the issues on your list are unsolvable so it’s hard to see what you would like the new Education Secretary to do.
I spent many a family party listening to my teacher Uncle complain vigorously about the Education Secretary of the day and eventually I asked him just what they could do to win his favour. He couldn’t think of anything beyond a wage increase.
It is a very fair question and one I was pondering myself while I wrote it.
The answer is most of these come back to poor management by the government.The issue, therefore, is in the top layer.
I do not see how these can be directly improved without causing at least as many problems as it would solve. To do so without devolving yet more work to the front line would require energy, money and administrative capacity that’s been wasted over the years so just isn’t there.
Getting rid of that top layer of management, notably the DfE, might help somewhat in the long term but in the short term I honestly don’t see how things can improve.
Moreover, she and Starmer have both been clear they want to work with the Civil Service rather than micromanaging it or replacing it.
So I’m saying she’s been set up to fail before she starts.
That's a bit of a counsel of despair, but perhaps a period of minimal change might be better than radical reform without the funding to see it through ?
That’s roughly the point I was making, yes.
Or to put it another way, I think the surgery needed to fundamentally sort out the problems would be so painful it might prove terminal.
Equally, it means that all claims to the contrary about improvements, more staff etc are going to prove bullshit.
How about something much more radical. Means testing free education. Let's face it, having kids is largely a choice. It seems odd that unless we are very poor it is expected that we feed our own kids, and yet so many very well off families expect the state (other taxpayers) to pay for their little darlings.
How about, any person who is on, say, more than £80k a year pays toward their children's state run education. It would also drive up standards as people would demand better standards if their own money is being paid. Probably be unpopular with LD and Labour supporters, but this way the poorer in our society could receive more support and the "rich" state school users will have to go on one less trip to the Maldives.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
We were told the policy would be a disaster during campaigning. It wasn't.
Interesting thread thank you Y doethur. It does seem though that you think most of the issues on your list are unsolvable so it’s hard to see what you would like the new Education Secretary to do.
I spent many a family party listening to my teacher Uncle complain vigorously about the Education Secretary of the day and eventually I asked him just what they could do to win his favour. He couldn’t think of anything beyond a wage increase.
It is a very fair question and one I was pondering myself while I wrote it.
The answer is most of these come back to poor management by the government.The issue, therefore, is in the top layer.
I do not see how these can be directly improved without causing at least as many problems as it would solve. To do so without devolving yet more work to the front line would require energy, money and administrative capacity that’s been wasted over the years so just isn’t there.
Getting rid of that top layer of management, notably the DfE, might help somewhat in the long term but in the short term I honestly don’t see how things can improve.
Moreover, she and Starmer have both been clear they want to work with the Civil Service rather than micromanaging it or replacing it.
So I’m saying she’s been set up to fail before she starts.
That's a bit of a counsel of despair, but perhaps a period of minimal change might be better than radical reform without the funding to see it through ?
That’s roughly the point I was making, yes.
Or to put it another way, I think the surgery needed to fundamentally sort out the problems would be so painful it might prove terminal.
Equally, it means that all claims to the contrary about improvements, more staff etc are going to prove bullshit.
How about something much more radical. Means testing free education. Let's face it, having kids is largely a choice. It seems odd that unless we are very poor it is expected that we feed our own kids, and yet so many very well off families expect the state (other taxpayers) to pay for their little darlings.
How about, any person who is on, say, more than £80k a year pays toward their children's state run education. It would also drive up standards as people would demand better standards if their own money is being paid. Probably be unpopular with LD and Labour supporters, but this way the poorer in our society could receive more support and the "rich" state school users will have to go on one less trip to the Maldives.
People on £80k a year already pay for their children's education. And everyone else's.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Problem is there isn't nearly enough of it. We already had to resort to vast banks of diesel generators to keep the lights on in recent years, and that was when we still had two or three coal fired 2gw power stations to bring on line. Gone now. Plus weve lost some nuclear capacity and new ones are getting later and later.
What do you mean when you say there isn't much of it?
Brian Sullivan @SullyCNBC Does Trump pull the ultimate showman move and pick Haley? I could see it. Some chatter too ..
She's 50-1, I mean she's probably 50-1 for a reason but I've put a shiny pound on her.
I'm green on Haley for veep. Might add another "shiny" pound.
Would make for a more sane administration? But then again Trump would have someone who might try and pull the 25th when it is clear he has, erm, issues.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Problem is there isn't nearly enough of it. We already had to resort to vast banks of diesel generators to keep the lights on in recent years, and that was when we still had two or three coal fired 2gw power stations to bring on line. Gone now. Plus weve lost some nuclear capacity and new ones are getting later and later.
Very little wind today. Nearly 41% from fossil fuels (including a bit of coal so we do have some coal powered stations left) and nearly 20% imported by interconnectors. https://grid.iamkate.com/
Seriously disappointing numbers. With our wind resources we really should be a net exporter of energy over the year.
We still have Ratcliffe on Soar. But you might have missed the publicity about the last ever coal train, which did it's last delivery a week or so ago. It is now running down it's stockpile until it closes later in the year.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
You don't think that extended periods of adverse weather conditions have been part of every analysis of the practicality and economics of grid renewables for the last decade ? Faith has nothing to do with planning.
During cloudy winter anticyclones we typically generate about 2gw of wind power. That's with the current wind turbine count and current interconnector setup. Only a small expansion of our wind capacity and a few more interconnectors would probably take the minimum up to at least 5gw, and combine that with turbines further out to sea and greater battery storage and you're getting higher than that even on the worst days. And shedloads of energy at all other times.
We need that surplus electricity during more favourable periods to embark on the next stage of our decarbonisation as the country's domestic heating and transportation get electrified. We are still capacity constrained.
You still have to plan for the exceptional 2-3 week periods when there's very little wind. They're not that unusual, even if you're looking Europe-wide.
But we're not planning to get all the way there for a decade and a half.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
How many requests do they normally get? It's a meaningless number without a baseline (preferably YoY as there are bound to be more requests in the months leading up to school year end.)
Don't know, but a quick google says that there are about 200 000 pupils in Surrey of whom about 40 000 go to independent schools.
Blimey, that's an enormous private/state ratio. Is there a colossal home counties effect in operation vis a vis private schools ? I think it'll barely register up here - though I am quite sure my neighbour has two children currently in private school (With a third too old now)
You have to be very very comfortably off to afford school fees out of income these days.
And where is the natural habital of the very very comfortably off?
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Not always and solar does not need direct, bright sunlight.
Future energy needs does need a balance and solar and indeed wind (mainly, I think, offshore) are a part of that.
Depends on the cloud type - a featureless winter stratus blanket pretty much completely kills solar generation.
Thank you. And such conditions, paired with windless conditions can last for weeks in late November and December in the UK.
I realise I am doing the equivalent of questioning the Virgin Birth for those who follow the faith of Gaia but it is a car crash that will be inevitable sooner or later
You don't think that extended periods of adverse weather conditions have been part of every analysis of the practicality and economics of grid renewables for the last decade ? Faith has nothing to do with planning.
We will find out the next time we get a repeat of December 2010s conditions now that our last coal generation stations are gone and what little nuclear is being built is years late.
Your faith in the powers that be to get it right is greater than mine.
Your faith in your own expertise being greater than that of the people who manage this stuff for a living is certainly impressive.
I remember when those "experts" who claimed that you could resignal the West Coast Main Line with in cab signalling (what we now call digital signalling) for a couple of billion at the turn of the century, said much the same about me on similar forums.
You don't need to be a qualified anatomist to deduce that someone has a leg missing.
It also helps to understand that when there are big political/corporate targets the politicians will be told they can be met, because people have big mortgages and can't afford to say "no". So most don't.
The national grid have put out statements about how they can cope with the extra demands that moving gas heating to electricity and cars to the grid. Whenever I have pointed out the colossal technological and logistically complex it is going to be to achieve this, the statement is pointed to and that is the end of the discussion.
This it. People don't out and out lie. These things are (usually) possible with enough time and gold thrown at them (sometimes eyewatering amounts of both).
However with pressure to meet politicians and corporate targets and business cases, both get underplayed, sometimes catastrophically.
See Crossrail and HS2 for recent examples and Channel Tunnel for an earlier example. And Sizewell C for a very recent example.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
How many requests do they normally get? It's a meaningless number without a baseline (preferably YoY as there are bound to be more requests in the months leading up to school year end.)
Don't know, but a quick google says that there are about 200 000 pupils in Surrey of whom about 40 000 go to independent schools.
Blimey, that's an enormous private/state ratio. Is there a colossal home counties effect in operation vis a vis private schools ? I think it'll barely register up here - though I am quite sure my neighbour has two children currently in private school (With a third too old now)
School rolls have been falling, so the capacity may be there in the state system in which case it may save some state schools from closing. 2 kids at private school, £3k/month, so £600 per month. Probably far less than the conservative government cost them in cost of living and mortgage increases
It's quite simple: let the government put VAT on private school fees for 'fairness', but let people who send their kids to private schools claim back the tax they pay for state schools their kids don't attend. Again, for 'fairness'...
Interesting thread thank you Y doethur. It does seem though that you think most of the issues on your list are unsolvable so it’s hard to see what you would like the new Education Secretary to do.
I spent many a family party listening to my teacher Uncle complain vigorously about the Education Secretary of the day and eventually I asked him just what they could do to win his favour. He couldn’t think of anything beyond a wage increase.
It is a very fair question and one I was pondering myself while I wrote it.
The answer is most of these come back to poor management by the government.The issue, therefore, is in the top layer.
I do not see how these can be directly improved without causing at least as many problems as it would solve. To do so without devolving yet more work to the front line would require energy, money and administrative capacity that’s been wasted over the years so just isn’t there.
Getting rid of that top layer of management, notably the DfE, might help somewhat in the long term but in the short term I honestly don’t see how things can improve.
Moreover, she and Starmer have both been clear they want to work with the Civil Service rather than micromanaging it or replacing it.
So I’m saying she’s been set up to fail before she starts.
That's a bit of a counsel of despair, but perhaps a period of minimal change might be better than radical reform without the funding to see it through ?
That’s roughly the point I was making, yes.
Or to put it another way, I think the surgery needed to fundamentally sort out the problems would be so painful it might prove terminal.
Equally, it means that all claims to the contrary about improvements, more staff etc are going to prove bullshit.
How about something much more radical. Means testing free education. Let's face it, having kids is largely a choice. It seems odd that unless we are very poor it is expected that we feed our own kids, and yet so many very well off families expect the state (other taxpayers) to pay for their little darlings.
How about, any person who is on, say, more than £80k a year pays toward their children's state run education. It would also drive up standards as people would demand better standards if their own money is being paid. Probably be unpopular with LD and Labour supporters, but this way the poorer in our society could receive more support and the "rich" state school users will have to go on one less trip to the Maldives.
People on £80k a year already pay for their children's education. And everyone else's.
Not really. A person on 80k pays a fairly moderate amount of tax compared to those on higher salaries, and additionally a large part of our public services are financed through business taxes. It is very unlikely that someone earning £80k a year who has two or three children will cover anything approaching their share of public services that their family consumes. It is an unfairness that parents expect those people without children to pay for their choice to have more offspring. Such a policy would raise a lot more revenue than the spiteful raid on private schools. Alternatively maybe the threshold should be much lower and be a sliding scale so that everyone who has children pays something. It could be done through the tax system as a system of progressive and targeted taxation
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
We were told the policy would be a disaster during campaigning. It wasn't.
It wont be an election costing disaster before getting into power as few people are affected. It may well be in a couple of years if the extra numbers cause a lot more people not to get their kids into first or second choice schools and council tax gets hiked to fund extra places.
England's Euro 2024 final defeat by Spain on Sunday was watched across the BBC by a peak of 19.3 million people, with an average audience of 17.9 million.
The match, which was also shown on ITV, brought in a peak TV audience of 17.8m on BBC One with a TV audience share of 63%.
Mikel Oyarzabal scored a late winner in Berlin to secure a 2-1 win for the Spanish, who became men's European champions for a record fourth time.
Meanwhile, it was a second successive European Championship final loss for Gareth Southgate's side.
England's game was also streamed 7.6 million times on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website.
A peak audience of 24.2 million watched the game across BBC and ITV, with the figures well down on the Euro 2020 final when England lost on penalties to Italy - which had a peak of more than 30 million.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
You can fill in the gaps for those times of day when the tides are not moving by having more than one tidal station. A quick Google shows that when it is high tide in Swansea Bay, it is low tide in Morecambe Bay. So actually that doesn't help much, because what you need is two stations where high tide at station a = mid tide at station b. But that must be achievable?
Until relatively recently, I thought high tide would be high tide everywhere in England. But no.
Interesting thread thank you Y doethur. It does seem though that you think most of the issues on your list are unsolvable so it’s hard to see what you would like the new Education Secretary to do.
I spent many a family party listening to my teacher Uncle complain vigorously about the Education Secretary of the day and eventually I asked him just what they could do to win his favour. He couldn’t think of anything beyond a wage increase.
It is a very fair question and one I was pondering myself while I wrote it.
The answer is most of these come back to poor management by the government.The issue, therefore, is in the top layer.
I do not see how these can be directly improved without causing at least as many problems as it would solve. To do so without devolving yet more work to the front line would require energy, money and administrative capacity that’s been wasted over the years so just isn’t there.
Getting rid of that top layer of management, notably the DfE, might help somewhat in the long term but in the short term I honestly don’t see how things can improve.
Moreover, she and Starmer have both been clear they want to work with the Civil Service rather than micromanaging it or replacing it.
So I’m saying she’s been set up to fail before she starts.
That's a bit of a counsel of despair, but perhaps a period of minimal change might be better than radical reform without the funding to see it through ?
That’s roughly the point I was making, yes.
Or to put it another way, I think the surgery needed to fundamentally sort out the problems would be so painful it might prove terminal.
Equally, it means that all claims to the contrary about improvements, more staff etc are going to prove bullshit.
How about something much more radical. Means testing free education. Let's face it, having kids is largely a choice. It seems odd that unless we are very poor it is expected that we feed our own kids, and yet so many very well off families expect the state (other taxpayers) to pay for their little darlings.
How about, any person who is on, say, more than £80k a year pays toward their children's state run education. It would also drive up standards as people would demand better standards if their own money is being paid. Probably be unpopular with LD and Labour supporters, but this way the poorer in our society could receive more support and the "rich" state school users will have to go on one less trip to the Maldives.
People on £80k a year already pay for their children's education. And everyone else's.
Not really. A person on 80k pays a fairly moderate amount of tax compared to those on higher salaries, and additionally a large part of our public services are financed through business taxes. It is very unlikely that someone earning £80k a year who has two or three children will cover anything approaching their share of public services that their family consumes. It is an unfairness that parents expect those people without children to pay for their choice to have more offspring. Such a policy would raise a lot more revenue than the spiteful raid on private schools. Alternatively maybe the threshold should be much lower and be a sliding scale so that everyone who has children pays something. It could be done through the tax system as a system of progressive and targeted taxation
Certainly a policy the gov't should look into to up our below replacement birth-rate and dependence on immigration.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
You can fill in the gaps for those times of day when the tides are not moving by having more than one tidal station. A quick Google shows that when it is high tide in Swansea Bay, it is low tide in Morecambe Bay. So actually that doesn't help much, because what you need is two stations where high tide at station a = mid tide at station b. But that must be achievable?
Until relatively recently, I thought high tide would be high tide everywhere in England. But no.
Tides basically go clockwise round GB (but some turns off right and they meet at Southampton) so yes you have a smooth progression of high tide times
It's quite simple: let the government put VAT on private school fees for 'fairness', but let people who send their kids to private schools claim back the tax they pay for state schools their kids don't attend. Again, for 'fairness'...
The benefits of state education are not just to one's own kids. They benefit the whole economy by ensuring an educated workforce. Good education reduces crime. Etc. Everyone benefits from other people's kids being educated well. Therefore, everyone, with kids or without, should contribute to the costs of state education.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
You can fill in the gaps for those times of day when the tides are not moving by having more than one tidal station. A quick Google shows that when it is high tide in Swansea Bay, it is low tide in Morecambe Bay. So actually that doesn't help much, because what you need is two stations where high tide at station a = mid tide at station b. But that must be achievable?
Until relatively recently, I thought high tide would be high tide everywhere in England. But no.
That's a bit different, tides are extremely predictable, but don't match the 24 hr clock (Unlike solar) or have the unpredictable variation of wind. They're not as flexible as gas either.
It's quite simple: let the government put VAT on private school fees for 'fairness', but let people who send their kids to private schools claim back the tax they pay for state schools their kids don't attend. Again, for 'fairness'...
The benefits of state education are not just to one's own kids. They benefit the whole economy by ensuring an educated workforce. Good education reduces crime. Etc. Everyone benefits from other people's kids being educated well. Therefore, everyone, with kids or without, should contribute to the costs of state education.
It's odd though that that argument reverses at age 18.
It's quite simple: let the government put VAT on private school fees for 'fairness', but let people who send their kids to private schools claim back the tax they pay for state schools their kids don't attend. Again, for 'fairness'...
The benefits of state education are not just to one's own kids. They benefit the whole economy by ensuring an educated workforce. Good education reduces crime. Etc. Everyone benefits from other people's kids being educated well. Therefore, everyone, with kids or without, should contribute to the costs of state education.
It's odd though that that argument reverses at age 18.
I'm all for greater state support for university students. This is entirely unconnected to the fact I am employed by a university.
Looks like the most corrupt President of all time is going to avoid ever being held to account . The Trump arse licking judge dismisses the classified documents case .
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
You can fill in the gaps for those times of day when the tides are not moving by having more than one tidal station. A quick Google shows that when it is high tide in Swansea Bay, it is low tide in Morecambe Bay. So actually that doesn't help much, because what you need is two stations where high tide at station a = mid tide at station b. But that must be achievable?
Until relatively recently, I thought high tide would be high tide everywhere in England. But no.
That's a bit different, tides are extremely predictable, but don't match the 24 hr clock (Unlike solar) or have the unpredictable variation of wind. They're not as flexible as gas either.
I was replying to Robert's point about how you fill the gap when the tide isn't running. It doesn't really matter if they don't match the 24 hour clock if you're using them for a baseload, and if you have more than one station you can even out slack tides. Solar matches the 24 hour clock, but doesn't necessarily match the 24 hour pattern in demand for electricity.
It's quite simple: let the government put VAT on private school fees for 'fairness', but let people who send their kids to private schools claim back the tax they pay for state schools their kids don't attend. Again, for 'fairness'...
The benefits of state education are not just to one's own kids. They benefit the whole economy by ensuring an educated workforce. Good education reduces crime. Etc. Everyone benefits from other people's kids being educated well. Therefore, everyone, with kids or without, should contribute to the costs of state education.
It's odd though that that argument reverses at age 18.
It doesn't, university education benefits the whole economy as well and should, as it was, be paid for out of general taxation.
State schools are being flooded with new pupil queries as parents brace for a planned tax raid on private schools.
Schools in Surrey received close to 600 queries in just two weeks last month from parents looking to place children, the Telegraph has learnt.
Surrey County Council received 582 email queries from private school parents between June 4 and June 19 asking about vacancies in local state schools, a Freedom of Information request showed.
The local education authority admitted the actual figure could be far higher as numerous requests may relate to more than one child and the figure does not include telephone queries.
That the cost of education for these kids is going to vastly exceed the VAT raised on the ones left in the private sector.
Also, even if this was revenue neutral in the medium term it's going to cause chaos in the short term as state schools are getting a pile of unexpected demand they are likely to be ill equipped to meet given that demand is normally fairly visible literally years in advance from the birth data.
This is the hunting ban for Starmer's government. Its not about the money, its the principle.
The principles of envy, nastiness and chippyness. Targeting children to satisfy left wing pathetic petty hatreds.
The negative externalities of this childish and nasty policy are going to hit Labour voters hard.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
We were told the policy would be a disaster during campaigning. It wasn't.
They havent implemented it yet. They dont knowe if it will raise any money, they dont know how many pupils the state sector will have to take, they dont know where they will put overflows they dont know where the teachers and infrastructure will come from.
Donald Trump’s criminal case on charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club was dismissed on Monday by the presiding judge, ruling that the special counsel who brought the case was unlawfully appointed and funded under the US constitution.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
You can fill in the gaps for those times of day when the tides are not moving by having more than one tidal station. A quick Google shows that when it is high tide in Swansea Bay, it is low tide in Morecambe Bay. So actually that doesn't help much, because what you need is two stations where high tide at station a = mid tide at station b. But that must be achievable?
Until relatively recently, I thought high tide would be high tide everywhere in England. But no.
That's a bit different, tides are extremely predictable, but don't match the 24 hr clock (Unlike solar) or have the unpredictable variation of wind. They're not as flexible as gas either.
You can site tidal schemes to generate power for the Grid 24/7
Even easier if you have some storage built into the system - see Tidal Ponds.
"Villagers 'shell-shocked' after solar farm approved
Campaigners opposed to a 2,500-acre solar farm said they were "shell-shocked" after the plan was approved by the secretary of state for energy, external.
Sunnica's £600m energy farm on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border was given the green light on Friday.
Opponents say the scheme takes some of the most productive land in the UK out of use, while ignoring alternative sites such as south-facing commercial roof space.
The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero says the "benefits of the proposed development outweigh its adverse impacts"."
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
You can fill in the gaps for those times of day when the tides are not moving by having more than one tidal station. A quick Google shows that when it is high tide in Swansea Bay, it is low tide in Morecambe Bay. So actually that doesn't help much, because what you need is two stations where high tide at station a = mid tide at station b. But that must be achievable?
Until relatively recently, I thought high tide would be high tide everywhere in England. But no.
Tides basically go clockwise round GB (but some turns off right and they meet at Southampton) so yes you have a smooth progression of high tide times
If only there was a way to transport electricity over long distances. We could connect all the power stations and human habitations to it....
Donald Trump’s criminal case on charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club was dismissed on Monday by the presiding judge, ruling that the special counsel who brought the case was unlawfully appointed and funded under the US constitution.
To every neutral American this now looks like a dedicated attempt by the powers-that-be, to take out Trump, by any and all means, up to and including murder
Donald Trump’s criminal case on charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club was dismissed on Monday by the presiding judge, ruling that the special counsel who brought the case was unlawfully appointed and funded under the US constitution.
There is a case that private school fees, up to the level of average state school per pupil yearly cost should be tax deductible to encourage their use, so that taxpayer has to provide less school funding.
Every parent sending their kid to private school lessens the load on the taxpayer.
Such a policy if linked to both increased academic ability linked burseries and twinninUg of private and state schools with pooled staff, might actually be genuinely progressive.
It might need a regulatory cap on the number of overseas students at private schools to work though.
The government is set to introduce a new law to make spiking a specific criminal offence in this week's King's Speech. Spiking is already a crime, covered by other pieces of legislation including the 1861 Offences against the Person Act. But Labour's manifesto, alongside the Conservatives', said creating a new, specific offence would help police better respond to incidents.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
The point is that the tidal and nuclear are the backup. They provide a baseline supply when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine. Tidal particularly is very consistent - unless someone goes all Space 1999 on the moon.
I like gas as well for obvious reasons. But more htan anything I wnt a secure supply and since the current Government seems to be committed to ending all fossil fuel generation, we have to look at viable alternatives. And that means something to underpin the traditional renewables.
"Villagers 'shell-shocked' after solar farm approved
Campaigners opposed to a 2,500-acre solar farm said they were "shell-shocked" after the plan was approved by the secretary of state for energy, external.
Sunnica's £600m energy farm on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border was given the green light on Friday.
Opponents say the scheme takes some of the most productive land in the UK out of use, while ignoring alternative sites such as south-facing commercial roof space.
The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero says the "benefits of the proposed development outweigh its adverse impacts"."
Is it really true that productive farmland is being taken out of use? If so there must be a reason the landowners are doing that.
Most around here have been sited on grass, not on land under the plough. Its also true that grass still grows around solar farms so can be used to graze stock (sheep mainly).
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
You can fill in the gaps for those times of day when the tides are not moving by having more than one tidal station. A quick Google shows that when it is high tide in Swansea Bay, it is low tide in Morecambe Bay. So actually that doesn't help much, because what you need is two stations where high tide at station a = mid tide at station b. But that must be achievable?
Until relatively recently, I thought high tide would be high tide everywhere in England. But no.
The problem is mitigated somewhat, if you have both nuclear and tidal as part of your baseload. And I don't think it's ridiculous to suggest that batteries will be sufficiently cheap in fifteen years' time to solve the 24 hour intermittency problem, so tidal intermittency is relatively trivial if you're looking that far ahead (which you're going to be doing for a really significant contribution from tidal power) .
You might further reduce it by building the suggested interconnects with N Africa.
Another side of the equation is demand control for industry. Solar is going to be really cheap at the margin in a decade's time. Utiity scale solar without storage is already the cheapest power per marginal kWh on the planet (along with onshore wind, if unconstrained by planning): https://decarbonization.visualcapitalist.com/the-cheapest-sources-of-electricity-in-the-us/ It's therefore potentially quite attractive to energy intensive industrial users which might be able to cope with a fortnight outage every couple of years as part of their bulk contracts, if the price is made sufficiently low. There's another part of your solution.
There is a case that private school fees, up to the level of average state school per pupil yearly cost should be tax deductible to encourage their use, so that taxpayer has to provide less school funding.
Every parent sending their kid to private school lessens the load on the taxpayer.
Such a policy if linked to both increased academic ability linked burseries and twinninUg of private and state schools with pooled staff, might actually be genuinely progressive.
It might need a regulatory cap on the number of overseas students at private schools to work though.
It's quite simple: let the government put VAT on private school fees for 'fairness', but let people who send their kids to private schools claim back the tax they pay for state schools their kids don't attend. Again, for 'fairness'...
The benefits of state education are not just to one's own kids. They benefit the whole economy by ensuring an educated workforce. Good education reduces crime. Etc. Everyone benefits from other people's kids being educated well. Therefore, everyone, with kids or without, should contribute to the costs of state education.
It's odd though that that argument reverses at age 18.
It doesn't, university education benefits the whole economy as well and should, as it was, be paid for out of general taxation.
Id be suspicious of that statement. It probably benefits society for the top 25% of grad after that its debatable. Millions of people with loans that have to be written off and paid for by society as a whole has no benefit. Nor does taking a large chunk of people out of the workforce for 3 years at a time when employers need workers.
Donald Trump’s criminal case on charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club was dismissed on Monday by the presiding judge, ruling that the special counsel who brought the case was unlawfully appointed and funded under the US constitution.
To every neutral American this now looks like a dedicated attempt by the powers-that-be, to take out Trump, by any and all means, up to and including murder
You’re beginning to sound unhinged. Next you’ll be showing us pics of you in your Maga hat .
Donald Trump’s criminal case on charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club was dismissed on Monday by the presiding judge, ruling that the special counsel who brought the case was unlawfully appointed and funded under the US constitution.
To every neutral American this now looks like a dedicated attempt by the powers-that-be, to take out Trump, by any and all means, up to and including murder
No. To every partisan Trump supporter that is how it looks. Neutral Americans tend to have more sense.
A prison officer has been arrested on suspicion of having an 'inappropriate relationship' with an inmate at a jail.
The officer who is believed to be a mother aged in her 40s is now believed to have been suspended from her job at Highpoint Prison in Stradishall near Haverhill, Suffolk.
A source close to the investigation said that the prison guard allegedly went into a room with the inmate where she performed a sex act on him.
Looks like the most corrupt President of all time is going to avoid ever being held to account . The Trump arse licking judge dismisses the classified documents case .
Judge Cannon just submitted what is in effect her job application to be the first appointee to the Supreme Court in Trump’s possible second term when Justice Alito or Justice Thomas retires. https://x.com/tribelaw/status/1812855107538633015
Or if one of the liberal judges has a health event.
Donald Trump’s criminal case on charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club was dismissed on Monday by the presiding judge, ruling that the special counsel who brought the case was unlawfully appointed and funded under the US constitution.
That's complete BS of course from Judge Loose Cannon. But we know that.
This may now be appealed to the 11th Circuit, as she has finally made a decision.
During a freezing winter high that can last a couple of weeks. None of them. Ditto the eagle slicers.
How do electric chargers not work under a freezing winter high? Solar still works in winter and winter high pressures tend to be clear skies (albeit for shorter days). And as for 'eagle slicers' I've yet to see a convincing pile of dead birds under a wind turbine.
Er no. Winter highs often bring prolonged spells of thick cloud and freezing fog. Good luck charging anything with a solar panel in such conditions in late November and December.
Whilst I understand your general argument re winter "Dankelflutes" - aren't chargers are surely connected to the general grid rather than a specific site ? So we'd have blackouts if the chargers weren't working.
Or is that wrong, are motorway chargers the first things to "drop out" if we can't generate enough load ?
At least in the UK, more and more Tesla chargers are being paired with battery storage. They might well be the last things operating when the grid drops. And/or selling power back to the grid (time shifting).
Battery storage is not free.. You have a 10% conversion loss, and charge cycles to deal with, this is more of an issue for rapid charge and discharge which is the proposed purpose here.
But the power transfer is going to be network to tesla battery near charger - and then from battery to car battery via the charger - and I can't see that additional step consuming more than an extra max 5% conversion loss..
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
That works well over a 24 hour cycle.
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Um that's where gas comes in as the final backstop...
Except the plan is to get rid of that. What we should be doing is using nuclear as that final backstop - or tidal. But for some reason too many people with influence seem to be opposed to both of these.
I'm a massive fan of natural gas: it's pretty clean, it's very efficient, and it is highly flexible.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
The point is that the tidal and nuclear are the backup. They provide a baseline supply when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine. Tidal particularly is very consistent - unless someone goes all Space 1999 on the moon.
I like gas as well for obvious reasons. But more htan anything I wnt a secure supply and since the current Government seems to be committed to ending all fossil fuel generation, we have to look at viable alternatives. And that means something to underpin the traditional renewables.
They can't really be backup for the entire grid, and also baseload, though. They just reduce the size of the problem.
Comments
Faith has nothing to do with planning.
Labour made the fiscal argument because that was easier to do than focus on the social angle.
With politicians increasingly sabotaging the machinery of government worldwide, our only protection lies in the civil service, judiciary, police and security services
Francis Beckett"
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-state-bureaucracy-is-crucial-to-our-happiness/
The UK's power network has some interesting limitations, remember my comment as to why Blyth is getting an AI data centre (power availability trumps everything else nowadays) see today's Register for a similar story and the closure of the main road from Scotch Corner to Richmond for 6 weeks last year to allow new cables to be laid int the new retail park..
Your faith in the powers that be to get it right is greater than mine.
(The more general point here is that the mindset to manage natural resources has to be a bit different to managing inorganic ones. You have to acknowledge the limits of human power and work with the resource a bit. It's the difference between manicured and wildflower gardens, or working with metal vs. wood. I suspect that humbling is what some people really dislike.)
In the meantime, every solar panel is a tear in Putin's eye.
We need that surplus electricity during more favourable periods to embark on the next stage of our decarbonisation as the country's domestic heating and transportation get electrified. We are still capacity constrained.
And one of the important things over the next few years is going to be using car batteries as a backup power source for the home, so that spare car battery capacity is used to power the home during the early evening before the car is fully charged over night.
https://ifs.org.uk/news/removing-tax-exemptions-private-schools-likely-have-little-effect-numbers-private-sector
The scenario you paint above is realistic, but it is not going to come with cheaper electricity. That infrastructure still needs maintained.
It's like we had to build a second three lane motorway alongside the M6 all the way up to Gretna, but we wouldnt be allowed to drive on it until the other motorway was at gridlock. But we would still need to maintain it to the same standard, as the other older motorway. As it would need to be instantly ready to use, it would need to have fully staffed service stations, speed cameras, highways agency, junctions and roundabouts out into major towns, and regularly resurfaced just like the original.
There is no scenario in which this ends up cheaper than we have now.
However Milipede minor banning new exploration wholly undermines that given we will need to back up renewables and use gas for heating for many years to come.
It won't be forgotten by lots of parents.
It comes from different viewpoints. Tesla were building a network to complement their cars and make EVs practical for long distance. The profit (and they make a profit on charging) is seen as a secondary effect.
Much of the charging stuff from other companies is highest price, minimum service, in a stupid dash for the highest profit.
Aren't there several venues that straddle the border (football club, a pub etc)? Can imagine the refill being only consumed in England...
However if you have a windless and leaden skied three weeks for the first weeks of December then it makes things worse. You are going to need those cars to be stationary and plugged in to keep the grid alive. Which means stopping people driving them.
That will go down well the week before Christmas.
Also works far better (and cheaper) than gas for peaker plants. Quicker, cheaper spin up and shutdown…..
It's more don't pick such a blooming stupid location for a solar farm go somewhere where the grid has spare capacity or in this case is actually vaguely close to the grid...
Anne Owers"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/15/prisons-inspector-offenders-justice-secretary-probation
You don't need to be a qualified anatomist to deduce that someone has a leg missing.
It also helps to understand that when there are big political/corporate targets the politicians will be told they can be met, because people have big mortgages and can't afford to say "no". So most don't.
https://www.surreyi.gov.uk/dataset/2y3j8/number-of-schools-and-pupils-by-type-of-school
The reason is that while we have 15 year planing enquiries for big storage systems, there’s little or nothing to stop a handful of shipping containers being put on an industrial site.
The possible vs the ideal…
Edit: right now, battery storage would be cheaper than building Dinorwig again. And prices continue to fall.
I think it'll barely register up here - though I am quite sure my neighbour has two children currently in private school (With a third too old now)
https://grid.iamkate.com/
Seriously disappointing numbers. With our wind resources we really should be a net exporter of energy over the year.
How about, any person who is on, say, more than £80k a year pays toward their children's state run education. It would also drive up standards as people would demand better standards if their own money is being paid. Probably be unpopular with LD and Labour supporters, but this way the poorer in our society could receive more support and the "rich" state school users will have to go on one less trip to the Maldives.
Brian Sullivan
@SullyCNBC
Does Trump pull the ultimate showman move and pick Haley? I could see it. Some chatter too ..
She's 50-1, I mean she's probably 50-1 for a reason but I've put a shiny pound on her.
If I were building a sensible long term energy strategy, it would be solar, gas and a little bit of wind.
And we do need flexible generation: tidal is not flexible, and nor is nuclear. How do you fill in gaps when nuclear is down for unscheduled maintenance (happens all the time), and it's that time of day when neither the sun is shining nor the tides are moving?
Do you mean generating capacity?
Would make for a more sane administration? But then again Trump would have someone who might try and pull the 25th when it is clear he has, erm, issues.
They're not that unusual, even if you're looking Europe-wide.
But we're not planning to get all the way there for a decade and a half.
And where is the natural habital of the very very comfortably off?
However with pressure to meet politicians and corporate targets and business cases, both get underplayed, sometimes catastrophically.
See Crossrail and HS2 for recent examples and Channel Tunnel for an earlier example. And Sizewell C for a very recent example.
2 kids at private school, £3k/month, so £600 per month.
Probably far less than the conservative government cost them in cost of living and mortgage increases
The match, which was also shown on ITV, brought in a peak TV audience of 17.8m on BBC One with a TV audience share of 63%.
Mikel Oyarzabal scored a late winner in Berlin to secure a 2-1 win for the Spanish, who became men's European champions for a record fourth time.
Meanwhile, it was a second successive European Championship final loss for Gareth Southgate's side.
England's game was also streamed 7.6 million times on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website.
A peak audience of 24.2 million watched the game across BBC and ITV, with the figures well down on the Euro 2020 final when England lost on penalties to Italy - which had a peak of more than 30 million.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c9wv74y7xj7o
A quick Google shows that when it is high tide in Swansea Bay, it is low tide in Morecambe Bay. So actually that doesn't help much, because what you need is two stations where high tide at station a = mid tide at station b. But that must be achievable?
Until relatively recently, I thought high tide would be high tide everywhere in England. But no.
Solar matches the 24 hour clock, but doesn't necessarily match the 24 hour pattern in demand for electricity.
Simply ideological twaddle.
Donald Trump’s criminal case on charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club was dismissed on Monday by the presiding judge, ruling that the special counsel who brought the case was unlawfully appointed and funded under the US constitution.
Even easier if you have some storage built into the system - see Tidal Ponds.
I hope they have learnt how to combine solar panels with agriculture and landscape.
The focus needs to be on roofs first. But this is the sort of decision that will be required by the new Government.
Every parent sending their kid to private school lessens the load on the taxpayer.
Such a policy if linked to both increased academic ability linked burseries and twinninUg of private and state schools with pooled staff, might actually be genuinely progressive.
It might need a regulatory cap on the number of overseas students at private schools to work though.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2x0ev00rzmo
I like gas as well for obvious reasons. But more htan anything I wnt a secure supply and since the current Government seems to be committed to ending all fossil fuel generation, we have to look at viable alternatives. And that means something to underpin the traditional renewables.
Llama? Ostriches?
And I don't think it's ridiculous to suggest that batteries will be sufficiently cheap in fifteen years' time to solve the 24 hour intermittency problem, so tidal intermittency is relatively trivial if you're looking that far ahead (which you're going to be doing for a really significant contribution from tidal power) .
You might further reduce it by building the suggested interconnects with N Africa.
Another side of the equation is demand control for industry.
Solar is going to be really cheap at the margin in a decade's time. Utiity scale solar without storage is already the cheapest power per marginal kWh on the planet (along with onshore wind, if unconstrained by planning):
https://decarbonization.visualcapitalist.com/the-cheapest-sources-of-electricity-in-the-us/
It's therefore potentially quite attractive to energy intensive industrial users which might be able to cope with a fortnight outage every couple of years as part of their bulk contracts, if the price is made sufficiently low. There's another part of your solution.
The officer who is believed to be a mother aged in her 40s is now believed to have been suspended from her job at Highpoint Prison in Stradishall near Haverhill, Suffolk.
A source close to the investigation said that the prison guard allegedly went into a room with the inmate where she performed a sex act on him.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13635575/Female-prison-officer-40s-arrested-having-inappropriate-relationship-male-inmate-bodycam-accidentally-switched-performing-sex-act.html
Sounds like a lot of fun getting banged up these days.
https://x.com/tribelaw/status/1812855107538633015
Or if one of the liberal judges has a health event.
This may now be appealed to the 11th Circuit, as she has finally made a decision.
They just reduce the size of the problem.